I had a real leak, and possibly a virtual leak.
The leak:
See the break in the groove? My knife edge has a small ding.
But it’s no problem as long as you tighten the conflat enough.
There are 20 bolts on these conflats, it’s easy to accidentally skip one or more.
To improve the process I made this paper insert:
Pretty proud of this one actually.
In addition to an actual leak, I may have had a virtual leak, which is just air trapped behind a screw. To eliminate a virtual leak, the bolts inside the vacuum need a channel to let trapped air escape:
I’ll cut those channels on the bolts today.
As a control I put the coil former and supports in the chamber unassembled:
It’s looking good!!
And dropping.
Prometheus Fusion Perfection 
Well done sir! Liking the templete. :D
Just out of curiosity, maybe this is a shot in the dark…. Have you thought about the possibility of using other winding geometries, i.e. bifilar windings of the Tesla type (flat pancake series-connected, parallel-wound) as a means to increase the capacitance and in turn, the magnetic field strength?
By the way I commend you on all of this, it’s awesome to see somebody carrying out experiments independently on this level. And extra points for being probably the only dude to fuse the atom in Brooklyn. Hard core!